


I've got you

by borntoshine



Series: Yullentide2019 [3]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Allen is a baby, M/M, Yullen Week 2019, Yullentide2019, kanda secretly loves to cuddle, tsundere!Kanda, yullentide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borntoshine/pseuds/borntoshine
Summary: Allen sees horrible things in his mind when he sleeps, and every night Kanda creates a safe place to keep his nightmares at bay.-----Yullentide 2019Prompt word:Mend/Broken
Relationships: Kanda Yuu & Allen Walker, Kanda Yuu/Allen Walker
Series: Yullentide2019 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575193
Comments: 5
Kudos: 71





	I've got you

“I’ve got you.”

Saying those words came naturally to Kanda the first time. It hadn’t been more than a whisper maybe, but it had Allen quiet his wails while Kanda’s arms closed around his tense body trashing in the sheets.

That night, weeks before, Kanda has lied next to Allen for the first time, holding the boy without having sleep claiming him until sunrise came. It has been the first close encounter he had with Allen’s nightmares, and Kanda doesn’t think he will be able to forget the despair painted on the boy’s face at the moment he managed to wake him up. Whatever Allen sees in his nightmares must be hell. He wakes in the middle of the night because of those, Allen sometimes screams, sometimes sobs. Other times he’s just silent to the point that Kanda wakes for the lack of noises, just to find Allen trapping his breath, keeping it in so long Kanda must shake him awake so he doesn’t suffocate himself.

But Kanda doesn’t ask what he sees, he never did and ever will. Kanda knows what nightmares can do to a person, he had his own share when he was younger – hell, he still has nightmares at times, and there’s nothing he can do to fight them. But Allen doesn’t sleep at night, ever. There’s not a single time Allen has spent resting for more than two or three hours since Kanda has been travelling with him. And the more time they spend together, the more it seems to him that Allen’s nightmare are just becoming worse and worse.

Thinking back at those first nights, while holding the boy in between the blanket of the bed they’re sharing, Kanda isn’t even surprised things ended this way.

“I’ve got you,” Kanda murmurs slowly, his arms are wrapped around Allen’s trembling body. His hands are moving slowly along his spine, having learnt how to touch to comfort and calm the younger to coax him into framing easier images in his mind. He’s breathing steadily, Allen’s head is pressed on his sternum, and Kanda can feel his hot forehead pressing on the neck. Slowly, Kanda leads their breathing pattern to match, working on shooting Allen back into sleep.

“I’ve got you, beansprout,” he says again in a low whisper, lips catching a white strand of hair, and it doesn’t bother Kanda. Instead, he turns his head slightly enough to brush Allen’s head with his mouth, and it warms him inside to hear the soft appreciative sigh the boy let’s out.

There’s nothing of usual Kanda in those acts, Kanda is _unmistakably_ aware of it. During the day he would feel embarrassed while recalling those moments, but in the night things are different. Allen is too far gone to remember most of what happens between nightmares. Sure, he has thanked Kanda more than once sharing some the other’s embarrassment at times, but he’s not surprised to wake in his bed _(maybe)_ too close to Kanda’s body anymore, and Kanda is quite sure Allen doesn’t even register any small gesture because he’s not lucid enough at night.

With the embrace of the shadows, Kanda doesn’t fight the need – _no,_ the urge – to touch. He’s been touch starved for so long that at first, it felt uncomfortable, hugging Allen. Then, it became a need. The warmth Allen’s body shares with him became an addiction and Kanda just gives in because it _feels good_. When Allen jolts awake, Kanda is there to hold him. And maybe that’s a bit egoistic, but if pursuing this behaviour helps Allen along the way, then Kanda doesn’t have any need to stop. Allen feels comfortable in his arms. The way his unmatched hands' grips on Kanda’s clothes tells him he feels safe and that Allen as well _feels good_. That’s all Kanda needs to know.

With all the abuse Allen has stored in his past, the violence he’s come across growing into the kind young man he is now, the pain he had to endure and the constant veil of death hovering over him, Kanda can’t help but feel his chest tight when he holds him against his body. There’s something undeniably broken in the boy, and Kanda doesn’t have the power to heal him. This, Kanda had known since the beginning, since before he chose to dive back into hell for this boy. But holding him like that, wrapped in the shield of his embrace and tight enough to feel the pulse of blood in his veins, Kanda has the clear intuition he’s doing the only possible thing in order to help and comfort Allen.

It’s only the hard truth that Kanda can’t heal Allen. He can’t magically change things, and he can’t even give him answers but, during the nights they spend alone and in the silence of unknown places lost in their path, Kanda can be there for him.

If Kanda can’t heal any of the wounds Allen carries within himself, at least he can hope to mend them.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be posted AFTER the prompt of Understanding, but I'm having some difficulties with the depth of the stuff I ended up writing for that, so it will wait.


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